


again i lost my strength completely

by strangeness



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, POV Second Person, Post Game, Survivor Guilt, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:49:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6026452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeness/pseuds/strangeness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max chooses Chloe; Chloe tries to forgive her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	again i lost my strength completely

When you make the choice you do, she stares at you with wide eyes, like you’ve just torn up an arm instead of a photo. For you, this is no contest, no question. You will live to regret being so hasty in your choice, but as the wind whips around you, reason gives way to instinct. 

“Max--” she begins, and you kiss her. Below you, the town churns and dies.

  
  
  
  
  


She doesn’t forgive you. Not really. 

She’s quiet as you drive through the town, or what is left of it. Her gaze is focused on the road, which is littered with wood and drywall. To your right, you can see what’s left of The Two Whales.

The building is a wreck, collapsed in on itself. There is a remnant of a whale there, somewhere. You glance at it and remind yourself to never look at it again. 

She says nothing, doesn’t even so much as remove her eyes from the road immediately in front of the two of you. 

You wonder where you’re going.

  
  
  
  


Your parents don’t recognize her when you guys show up at their doorstep. Your mother tugs you to her chest tightly and kisses your hair, because she heard about the storm and hasn’t slept since then. You realize you should have called. Your father stands behind you with a hand on your shoulder.

You are effectively cloistered, and you feel her eyes on you. When you glance over your mother’s shoulder, she’s staring at you. Cold, clinical, hard, hollow; she is on the brink of a realization. You watch without a word as she discovers what she’s lost. 

  
  
  
  


She lays in your old bed in your old room next to you that night in the dark. The bed is a double, and so you are stuffed together close, so your breath mingles. You lay on your side and look at her as she counts the revolutions of the ceiling fan overhead. She hasn’t really looked at you in days. 

You say her name. She blinks and quietly hums in acknowledgement. You ask her what’s wrong, and she shrugs, turning her face to you. Her lips are a tight line, and you notice how she looks like she’s shrunken in on herself. 

“I don’t know what to do now.” She tells you simply. You find her hand underneath the blanket and clasp it tightly. She squeezes back for a moment before going limp in your grasp. “Where am I supposed to go from here?”

“You don’t have to go anywhere.” You tell her. “You can stay here with me.” It doesn’t feel like an answer to the question she’s asking just below the surface, but you swallow that down and save it for later. 

She looks at you for a long moment, and then the corner of her lips turns up ever so slightly. She closes her eyes.

  
  
  
  


You see her smile now only when there is a fifth of liquor between you, and while that cuts when you’re sober, it fills you with relief with vodka in your esophagus. 

You steal from your parents liquor cabinet all the time. You never used to indulge, but something dark is swirling around her, almost palpable, and it makes you both reach for a bottle. 

You play stupid games, and very pointedly do not talk about the past. One time, she tells you a story, and then the name ‘Rachel’ leaves her mouth without her even thinking about it, and she pauses.

You look at her expectantly, wanting her to go on. It’s the first time that she’s allowed herself to unfold for you since the storm. 

After a moment, she breathes again. “It’s a dumb story.” Something between you deflates.   
  
You play with the cap to the bottle, turning it in your fingers and popping it off of your thumb over and over again. “Do you miss her?” You ask her, raising your eyes slightly to get a good look at her. “It’s okay if you do.”   
  
She says your name, wavering and weak, but strangely harsh. She swallows thickly, and her eyes are shut. When she opens them, she stares through you rather than at you. “I miss everyone.”

  
  
  
  


You dream of Joyce, and Warren, and Kate. When you wake in the dark, it occurs to you that they are all dead, it occurs to you that you chose her over all of them. 

You turn your face to see her looking at you knowingly.

“Your mom,” you croak out, your voice is hoarse with sleep. “She died.” Blunt, and to the point. She doesn’t even flinch.

She nods. “So did everyone else.” She isn’t saying it to hurt you, it’s just a fact.    
  
“It’s all my fault.” You reflect.    
  
“No,” she tells you, turning over and putting her back to you. “It’s mine.”

  
  
  
  


She’s never been to Seattle, and so you show her the sights. You take pictures at every attraction, and in the polaroids the two of you almost look happy. 

At the top of the Space Needle, you come to the conclusion that Warren would have loved it here. 

It’s not like she knows, how could she? She touches your hand anyway. 

  
  
  
  


“I need you to forgive me.” You tell her quietly. You’re in your room again, in the dark and hidden under the covers. The space between you is illuminated by the light of her phone, casting her in a pale light. Her skin is almost translucent, and you wonder if her corpse would have looked like this. 

“We lost everything.” She tells you quietly. Her eyes are wide, and her breathing is shaky.    
  
“I had to save you.” You murmur, and she shakes her head.   
  
“You didn’t. It should have been me.” You open your mouth to interject, but she continues. “I get  _ why _ you picked me. That’s why this is my fault.” 

The screen flashes off, casting you both into blackness. “They’re all dead.” She says. “They’re all dead.” She repeats.

“I know.” You say.

“They didn’t even get a funeral. No one even  _ knows _ .” She sounds hushed and panicked all at once. “No one knows what we did.” 

You surge forward to catch her lips with yours. She kisses back, even brings her hands up to cup your face. When you part, you can hear her quiet sniffs.

“I fucking miss them.” She says, and then laughs humorlessly. “I miss  _ Arcadia Bay _ . What a fucking joke. Can you believe it?”

“I know.” You say. Your stomach flips. Churns and dies below you. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from [death with dignity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsGODTySH0E) by sufjan.


End file.
